It wasn’t so much that this was a short-measure concert (70
minutes of music) – quality before quantity at all times – but a
shapeless and unrelated one: a relatively short violin concerto
undermined by a much-longer and extravagant vocal and choral
symphony. For the sake of five minutes, Delius’s On Hearing the
First Cuckoo in Spring would have been a seasonal scene-setter
(there are numerous ‘Spring’ pieces) and provided some contour
and symmetry to the programme as a whole.
And so Viktoria Mullova started the concert ‘cold’, literally so
given the solo violin begins Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto, a
three-movement affair, lyrical and often touching – if less so
here in a performance lacking variegation (and seemingly a
mute on Mullova’s violin until a member of the LSO came to the
rescue!). As a work central to her concerto repertoire, Mullova
played with seasoned identification and technical rapacity (that
she played from the music is now standard for her) but fantasy
and innocence were overlooked for something ‘black and white’
and ‘up and down’. The music’s rhythmic profile was vividly
edged, phrases given without exaggeration, yet tenderness was
in short supply, and the finale was pushed along relentlessly
eschewing the humour that can be found in it. Orchestra and
conductor played their part sympathetically but the piece palled
due to a limited response to it.
First performed in Amsterdam in 1949 conducted by Eduard van
Beinum (there’s a recording of this) and with a second that year
in Boston under Koussevitzky, the work’s commissioner,
Benjamin Britten had struggled to complete “Spring Symphony”;
a combination of other pressures of work as well as ill-health. As
with just about everything from this composer, the finished
result is immaculate if, here, sometimes precious. Conversely,
the music (setting Spencer, Nashe, Milton, Herrick, W. H. Auden,
Blake, and others) is often rapturously beautiful, sometimes
deeply felt, brilliantly inventive if not quite adding up in
‘symphony’ terms.
This performance was mostly excellent, Daniel Harding and the
LSO fully revealing of Britten’s effects, the conductor with a full
and firm grasp of all the work’s entreaties, not least the
‘unfreezing’ of the opening bars, the London Symphony Chorus
immediately catching the air with singing of wide-ranging
dynamics and meticulous staccatos reminding of dripping water
(and, later, some remarkably hushed contributions). This was a
seasonal-change of no little tension and pain, Mark Padmore
introducing ‘The Merry Cuckoo’ as a bright-toned clarion. All
three soloists were outstanding, the two ladies very much inside
their particular texts and radiating outwards with their projection
of them and the tenor demonstrating an enviable poise and
clarity of syllable. The members of Tiffin Boys’ Choir made a
noteworthy contribution, either singing or whistling (all from
memory).
Individual settings linger in the memory – Susan Gritton’s
contribution to ‘The Driving Boy’ (first movement), Sarah
Connolly’s eloquence in ‘Out on the Lawn’ (slow movement) and
Padmore’s dexterity in ‘When Will My May Come’ (scherzo).
Harding made an effective attacca to the finale, arguably the
weakest but also the most exhilarating part of the work, mostly a setting of an anonymous 13th-century poem. Here Britten
introduces the use of a cow horn, very well played and a
distinctive timbre, if somewhat losing its appeal (the composer’s
miscalculation); Harding built well to the spine-tingling (as it was
here) entrance of ‘Sumer is icumen in’ (all the performers now in
thrilling union) and the work closed with an almighty bang!
Further LSO/Harding concerts on April 3 (Tchaikovsky and
Stravinsky) & 6 (Britten and Brahms)
And so Viktoria Mullova started the concert ‘cold’, literally so
given the solo violin begins Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto, a
three-movement affair, lyrical and often touching – if less so
here in a performance lacking variegation (and seemingly a
mute on Mullova’s violin until a member of the LSO came to the
rescue!). As a work central to her concerto repertoire, Mullova
played with seasoned identification and technical rapacity (that
she played from the music is now standard for her) but fantasy
and innocence were overlooked for something ‘black and white’
and ‘up and down’. The music’s rhythmic profile was vividly
edged, phrases given without exaggeration, yet tenderness was
in short supply, and the finale was pushed along relentlessly
eschewing the humour that can be found in it. Orchestra and
conductor played their part sympathetically but the piece palled
due to a limited response to it.
This performance was mostly excellent, Daniel Harding and the
LSO fully revealing of Britten’s effects, the conductor with a full
and firm grasp of all the work’s entreaties, not least the
‘unfreezing’ of the opening bars, the London Symphony Chorus
immediately catching the air with singing of wide-ranging
dynamics and meticulous staccatos reminding of dripping water
(and, later, some remarkably hushed contributions). This was a
seasonal-change of no little tension and pain, Mark Padmore
introducing ‘The Merry Cuckoo’ as a bright-toned clarion. All
three soloists were outstanding, the two ladies very much inside
their particular texts and radiating outwards with their projection
of them and the tenor demonstrating an enviable poise and
clarity of syllable. The members of Tiffin Boys’ Choir made a
noteworthy contribution, either singing or whistling (all from
memory).